chaxblog

18 May 2009

Dear Friend: We hope you can help us at this time. Please read the attached note, and consider what we do, and what you can do! Thank you -- Charles

We at Chax Press believe that the present tumultuous time, like all times, requires a strength of vision, which is our strength. This is not a time to do less, but to continue to do all that we can.

In almost 25 years, Chax Press has become one of the important small presses of our time and place. It is now time to step up to a new level of performance, and we are preparing for the challenge. In the next five years, we intend to triple our budget and to become a press that, through its reach, artistic imagination, and professional strength, has lasting impact on the future of American literature as well as innovative world writing.

The first steps we must take this year are to secure the full-time attention and salary of the Executive Director and hire an assistant. As we begin our work toward our new goals, we are being assisted by an experienced, successful organizational development consultant. One of our important commitments to an enduring future is to fund such a consultant to help us grow in a sustainable manner. As our activities become more regular and the Executive Director’s time is devoted to artistic direction, fine art book production, and long-range vision, we will also add a marketing/book sales and fundraising coordinator. In addition, we plan to expand our current Youth Education Programs (school projects in our studio, residencies in schools) and hire a Youth Programs Coordinator.

At this important time in our history, we are seeking financial support, to sustain programs, from all who have given in the past, and from new donors. We ask that you, specifically, consider a gift in an amount ranging from $25 to $500. But the important thing is to give, in any amount you can. Your generosity will support the kind of press that will give our authors — such writers as Steve McCaffery, Leslie Scalapino, Karen Mac Cormack, Linh Dinh, Myung Mi Kim, Will Alexander, Bruce Andrews, Kass Fleisher, Joe Amato, Gil Ott, Hank Lazer, Nathaniel Mackey, Jerome Rothenberg, Nick Piombino, Elizabeth Treadwell, Sarah Riggs, Beverly Dahlen, and more — the support they deserve, and the boost that will help them reach more readers and new readers. A stronger Chax Press will allow us to profoundly impact the present and future of literature in America and around the world.

While Chax Press is preeminently a publisher of innovative writing and a creator of inventive book arts editions, we also provide literary and artistic education about our field of activities. Your gift will support stronger and more frequent youth and adult educational programs, including internships for college students, book making and creative workshops for youth and adults, literary arts/literacy learning programs, and literary residencies in schools.

In addition, public presentations are important to what we do. Your gift supports readings and lectures by writers and artists in Tucson, readings by groups of Chax Press writers in locations around the country, lectures and presentations about Chax Press works in locations including Seattle, Tuscaloosa, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City, Buffalo, and London.

Exhibitions of book arts by Chax Press have been displayed in locations ranging from the Victoria & Albert Museum Library to the J. Paul Getty Center Library, from London and Paris to Toronto and Seattle, from museums to libraries to community art centers. Currently, our fine arts book, Witness, by Kathleen Fraser and Nancy Tokar Miller, is featured in a retrospective exhibit at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, with framed, handprinted pages as well as the complete book on display.

We are not only one of the most diverse and visionary presses in America; we are also one of the liveliest. Now you can help us to build for the future, too, and help our authors, books, and programs have an impact that will continue for decades and leave a permanent mark on the state of literature and the book arts. We are stepping up; we ask you to step up with us.

Thank you for your gift at this time. We will continue to reward your faith and generosity. We make a pact with you. The ascent beckons.

Ways to donate:1. Send us a check in the mail, to Chax Press, 411 N 7th Ave Ste 103, Tucson, AZ 85705-83882. Go to the “donate” page on our web site: http://chax.org/donate.htm3. Go to your own Paypal account, and have a payment sent to us; you may even be able to arrange for regular monthly payments, to make this easy for you. Just $8 per month adds up to a $96 annual gift that helps immensely.4. If you practice online banking, arrange through your online payment service for a gift to be sent to us. You can also arrange in this way to make a regular monthly or quarterly contribution.

15 May 2009

Zukofsky says, in A Test of Poetry, that about the only thing in Keats he values is the four-syllable sequence "hedge crickets sing" from Ode to Autumn. My friend Tenney Nathanson thinks that's not quite fair, for, while also applauding that mini-sequence, Nathanson believes you can take almost any string of four syllables in that Keats ode and have a memorably sounded orchestra of consonants and vowels.

Somehow I was thinking of this while reading Lisa Chen's marvelous 2007 book, Mouth (Kaya Press). And here are some brief snippets demonstrating her soundings.